WWE: 7 Ways the Rock's Presence Has Affected the Company

Finally, The Rock came back to the WWE, and when he did, he was certain to make his mark on the company.

Though "The People's Champ" was criticized by many for returning only as a part-timer and for coming and going throughout the course of the last year-plus, I, for one, enjoyed the ride.

While The Rock never seemed to be able to please everybody, there's no denying the huge effect that he has had on the WWE.

The Rock is great for the company and for pro wrestling as a whole, and although there were some negatives that came with his return, the positives generally outweighed them.

So let's take a look at those, with seven ways that The Rock's presence in the WWE has affected the company.

7. He Caused His Fellow Superstars to Step Up Their Game

There's obviously no way of proving this, but I definitely think that The Rock's return caused his fellow WWE superstars to elevate their game in several different areas.

When The Rock came in, I can imagine that their thoughts were, "I'm not letting this dude come back in and take my spot. I'm going to work my ass off to make sure that doesn't happen."

As a result, we saw The Rock have somewhat of a direct effect on guys like Mark Henry, Christian, Daniel Bryan and Sheamus, all of whom really stepped up to the plate in 2011 and into 2012 as a way of saying that people should forget about The Rock and focus on them.

Like with the Monday Night Wars between Raw and Nitro, competition drives people to perform better, and that's exactly what The Rock's WWE return seemed to do with a number of superstars over the last year.

Although The Rock had only an indirect effect on most of his fellow stars, I think we can all agree that he had a very direct effect on John Cena.

Hate Cena if you must, but especially over the last couple of months of his feud with The Rock, he performed much better as a character and even won over some fans who previously couldn't stand him.

Even if that were all The Rock accomplished, it would have been worth it.

6. More Long-Term Feuds

Yet another perhaps indirect effect The Rock had.

The feud between The Rock and John Cena lasted more than a year, and I think it's safe to say that it was one of the hottest and most successful feuds that we've seen in a long time.

At the same time that The Rock started his lengthy feud with Cena, we also saw a number of other lengthy WWE rivalries: Randy Orton vs. Christian, Mark Henry vs. The Big Show, Undertaker vs. Triple H, Chris Jericho vs. CM Punk, etc.

The common link between all of these feuds was long-term planning, and while I'm obviously not sure where creative's sudden urge to have lengthy feuds came from, it seems as if the WWE saw all the hype surrounding the Rock/Cena feud and realized that it would be a good idea to build up rivalries that last much longer than the traditional one- or two-month long ones we usually see.

There was a clear shift to feuds that lasted three months, four months or even more, and this is something that is awesome to see in the WWE.

The best feuds typically last the longest, and thanks to The Rock and Cena (maybe), longer feuds have become more of the norm in the company.

5. It Halted the Pushes of Several Up-and-Comers

This is probably the most negative effect that The Rock's return had on the WWE.

Especially during WrestleMania season, The Rock's presence in the company halted the pushes of several up-and-coming stars and forced them to the back burner.

Just look at guys like The Miz and Dolph Ziggler.

The Miz headlined WrestleMania 27 last year, while Ziggler was competing for the WWE Championship only a few months ago. Yet when The Rock came in after Elimination Chamber and his feud with Cena became the focus of Raw, Miz and Ziggler became complete afterthoughts on the show.

I get that not everyone can be at the top of the card (especially before 'Mania), but it was a shame to see a part-timer like The Rock take top priority over full-timers who are deserving of a push.

Obviously, it was a good short-term business decision to bring The Rock in temporarily, but in the long term, it probably set a number of WWE superstars back considerably.

I would say that this was the biggest drawback of bringing The Rock back. 

4. The Rock's Return Led to Brock Lesnar's Return?

Just think about all the hype surrounding The Rock's return to the ring, how much it meant for the WWE and its effect on pro wrestling as a whole.

Now, do you really think it's a coincidence that on the same night he left the company (temporarily, yes), Brock Lesnar returned to WWE TV?

I sure don't.

It's almost a certainty that Vince McMahon and WWE officials saw what The Rock's return was doing for the company and thought, "Hey, we could bring in another huge name from the past, and he could probably do the same."

Even if Lesnar doesn't do the exact same things for the WWE that The Rock has done, he's undoubtedly going to be a huge asset to the company over the course of the next year.

And I doubt that Lesnar's return would have ever even happened had The Rock never returned.

Vince saw dollar signs with The Rock, and when he knew that The Rock had to leave the WWE for a while again, he saw dollar signs with Lesnar.

3. The WWE's New-Found Focus on Social Media

The WWE's Twitter obsession would still exist even if The Rock never returned because Vince McMahon seems to love that crap.

But if any particular WWE star is synonymous with Twitter, it is The Rock.

The Rock launched his Twitter account on the same day that it was announced he would be returning to the WWE, and since then, he's integrated Twitter into just about every single one of his promos.

Think about all the trending terms we've heard/seen that have stemmed from The Rock: "Boots to Asses," "Cena's lady parts," "Fruity Pebbles" and so on and so forth.

While the WWE hasn't shoved Twitter down our throats exclusively because of The Rock, there's no doubt that the tremendous effect he has had on the social networking site has caused the WWE to push Twitter more than it would have otherwise.

I don't particularly care for Twitter, but it is what it is.

Thanks, Rock.

2. The Success of WrestleMania 28

ESPN's Gus Ramsey caused a media hailstorm last week when he claimed that WrestleMania 28 had generated an astounding 1.9 million pay-per-view buys, which would have obliterated the WWE's previous record of 1.2 million, held by WrestleMania 23.

That would later prove to be false, but the pay-per-view was still incredibly successful.

From DailyFinance (via Bleacher Report):

"

According to DailyFinance, the WWE grossed $8.9 million dollars in event sales for its latest PPV foray, shattering the previous record of WrestleMania XXV, which had gross event sales of $7.2 million.

"

Maybe that's not 1.9 million PPV buys, but it's still a huge accomplishment, nonetheless, one that proves that there was a ton of interest in WrestleMania 28.

While a number of factors contributed to this, you have to think that The Rock played as big a part in the success of WrestleMania 28 as anyone.

The guy is one of the biggest wrestling stars ever, he draws, and he made people want to buy and watch WrestleMania 28. 

1. It Has Generated More Interest in the WWE in General

It's hard to actually prove that The Rock generated more general interest in the WWE.

But just look at all the added exposure that The Rock got for the company. He appeared on late night talk shows, TV shows like SportsCenter, conducted interviews for the WWE and so on and so forth.

None of these things would have happened if The Rock wasn't with the WWE, and the interest from outside organizations in WrestleMania 28 wouldn't have been there if it wasn't for The Rock.

Do you think that Entertainment Tonight would have done a story on WrestleMania 28 if The Rock wasn't involved? Absolutely not.

Yet The Rock is considered a celebrity now, and outside organizations became much more interested in the WWE as soon as he became involved with it.

Plus, you have to consider the very real possibility that old-school or Attitude Era fans saw that The Rock returned to WWE, started watching it again and kept watching it, regardless of whether he was on or not.

If The Rock accomplished both of those things (bringing back old fans and generating more interest in WWE in general), then his return was well worth it.

Note: As part of the new WWE blog, I'll be asking all of the B/R wrestling readers for questions for a new mailbag that I will post on Fridays. It will be a slideshow featuring 10-20 questions and answers on a wide range of topics. You can submit questions either through Formspring or Twitter, and the best ones will be answered in the B/R mailbag.